The Biggest Scam
by TheLostRelic
Summary: "Suddenly, he forgot what happened that night. The influence of alcohol dulled the pain and made him forget just what had occurred, but he knew that once he became sober, everything would just rush back to him, beginning the cycle anew." Rated M for Dark and Adult Themes. AU One-Shot
1. The Biggest Scam

**The Biggest Scam**

He downed another shot and cleared his throat roughly as the fiery liquid burns on its descent. With his right hand, he loosened his black silk tie and then rolled up the sleeves of his white button down. By the time he looked up, Pollux had already placed another shot in front of him. Percy looked up at the bartender gratefully, but Pollux had already moved to serve another customer.

With surprising quickness, the next shot was quickly imbibed and the empty glass pressed forcefully against the varnished wood of the counter top. He could almost see the individual grains of the cherry wood, but he wasn't sure if that was the alcohol talking. Frankly, he didn't give a damn why he could see the grains; all that mattered was, _he could see every single grain_.

Percy ran his hand through his ebony hair, but when he did, it was like his nerve endings no longer worked and he couldn't even feel the hair beneath his shaking finger tips. He wasn't sure if that was symptomatic of being intoxicated or if that was because he had killed every emotion in his body. Maybe it was a mixture of both, but he didn't dwell on the thought, knowing that it would follow a tangent that would take him down he road he had absolutely no wish to venture down.

He closed his eyes as he downed the third shot, and regretted the decision almost instantly. All that he could see were the hands. The lustful hands gliding over her body. Hands that were not his own.

When his eyelids flew open there was a vengeful fire in them unmatched in heat or intensity by even hellfire itself. No, Percy's eyes burned with something of a much different caliber than something as ordinary as the flames of hell.

His lips curved upwards at the melodrama of that particular thought. It almost induced a chuckle on his end.

Almost.

The fourth shot also arrived silently, and briefly Percy wondered how Pollux was serving him so stealthily, but then again, he didn't give a damn. The gin and tonic began to flow down his throat as well and yet again, the burning sensation built up in his throat causing him to wheeze unattractively. He chuckled darkly to himself when his fingers returned bloody after brushing up against his lips.

Coughing up blood suddenly became strangely amusing to Percy. When he looked up to see if anyone had noticed, he was surprised to see that everyone in the bar was too self-absorbed with their own trivial pursuits to notice.

With a nonchalant shrug, his gaze returned to the counter top where another innocent, magical shot glass rested and he lifted it so that he could see the way that the light played off the amber colored liquid. It was fascinating the way that the light seemed to bring out an infinite array of colors, drawing out the darkest of blacks and the palest of oranges, creating a symphony of color.

Yet again, his lips curved upwards at the thought of his newfound poeticism. When he finally downed that shot as well, he felt his senses heighten almost supernaturally. He suddenly became very aware of the dull throbbing and aching of his heart as it beat languidly in his chest. Without his permission, his head craned upwards and his eyes lingered on the entrance of the bar.

Then _she_ walked in and with her, a different man than the one he had caught her with.

Her honey blond hair was elaborately curled, let down so that the spirals and curls fell in neat ringlets down her shoulders. The gray cocktail dress that she wore only accentuated her already entrancing eyes which glittered without an iota of remorse or shame. No, she looked every bit as happy as she always had been when she was with him. In fact, she looked as though she was making a conscious effort to look even happier, probably to spite him further.

When he saw her idling in the doorway, her waist encircled by another man's arm, Percy was convinced he was going to lose the vestiges of his sanity. What little remained after her initial betrayal threatened to capsize, leaving him alone to drown in an ocean of self-pity and agony.

The first thing that rose like bile in his mouth was disgust that he barely managed to ward off. She was with _another_ man now, not even the one that she had slept with before. He couldn't even recognize the harlot standing in place of the woman that he once thought that he had known, that he once thought he meant something to, that he once thought he loved.

Unbidden, memories came like hollow ghosts from the ether, pulling his consciousness back to relive, to remember, to preserve and retain.

_Percy finally unlocked the door with the spare key hidden underneath the potted plant that led to his apartment that he shared with Annabeth. He had just arrived from a marine biology convention in Geneva to discuss exciting new developments that had arisen the past year. Truthfully, while the entire thing had been a rather interesting, if not dry affair, he was really looking forward to seeing his fiance again. _

_He padded to the kitchen and slipped off his suit jacket, laying it across the backbone of the chair resting by the kitchen island before filling up a glass with cold water. He quickly removed his watch and rolled up the sleeves of his white button down before slipping his black silk tie off his neck in one fluid motion. As he drank he reflected on the momentous occasion tomorrow: their anniversary. It had been ten years to the day that they had officially began to go out as a couple. _

_The black velvet box suddenly seemed to grow in weight in the pocket of his fine Italian silk pants. Boy, was he nervous. Proposing to Annabeth was definitely a nerve-wracking affair and the thought made him weak in the knees. Even though they had known each other since the age of twelve, he still had no grasp over the way her mind worked. _

_He was going to do it though, propose to her that is. Everything was planned out; reservations made, flowers bought, ring ready, bride willing...  
Even his unannounced return was all apart of the big surprise. He wanted to surprise her tonight by coming home a little earlier than he had initially thought. He hadn't called her to pick him because he figured that she would have already fallen asleep by now._

_Everything was going to go just fine. _

_However, Percy didn't expect to hear a moan come from their bedroom and suddenly he realized that a dim light flickered there. With light steps and a heavy heart, he flung open the door and suddenly everything seemed to stop. _

_The man moving his greedy hands over every inch of his fiance's exposed body stopped. His beautiful fiance, now breathlessly returning the thrusts of the stranger beneath her stopped. Most of all, Percy stopped. _

_The cup in hand was the metaphorical harbinger of doom, for when it shattered, his whole world did._

_Suddenly, everything moved so quickly, he wasn't entirely sure what had happened. One second, she looked at him and screamed his name in surprise, trying to cover up her naked body even though he had already seen it before hand. _

_That probably hurt the most, the fact that she treated him like a stranger that had peeped on her naked form like he had no right to see it, instead of as the man she was engaged to. _

_Then Percy's feet moved and things went black and the man groping and lusting after Annabeth was on the ground, his skull split open, blood pooling on the ground. _

_Finally, trembling fingers enclosed around a tiny black velvet box before they flung it at the adulteress before him. Disgust and repulsion and betrayal all flashed before Percy's eyes, once a clear and vibrant sea green now darker than the most dangerous of tempests, as he cast one final glance at his lover before storming out the room. Before he passed through the doorway, he didn't even bother to turn his head when he authoritatively proclaimed. _

_"We're through." _

_The finality of the statement hung in the air and forever lingered in the bedroom, long after Percy had left..._

Here she was now, arm in arm with another man without any pretense of guilt or sorrow or remorse. She was unequivocally calm and happy and bright as though she hadn't stabbed her fiance in the back. She had made him a cuckold and she didn't feel guilty at all.

When Percy tore his gaze away from her, he saw Pollux glaring at Annabeth with evident disdain and disgust as he wiped a glass with a towel. Percy watched with amusement as Pollux leaned over to Grover Underwood and said, "She never deserved Percy. I can't believe she slept around when she had a guy like that." He said, voice laden with disapproval.

Grover nodded solemnly, his eyes sad and heavy at the sight of just how far his once close friend had fallen. He couldn't even begin to understood her thought process when she had betrayed Percy and slept with another man. Percy had given her everything that she had ever asked for: money, love, affection, and had demanded almost nothing in return. He was the one that had finally created something permanent in her life, and she had thrown it all away in direct contrast to her demands for constancy.

Percy watched in confusion at the looks of unbridled abhorrence that passed across both Pollux and Grover's faces before they grew almost despondent with sadness.

No, not sadness.

Grief.

They seemed like they were grieving almost and that struck Percy as odd. Pollux shakily clapped Grover's shoulder before resuming his work, and Grover glanced with unmasked hatred at Annabeth's figure, now passionately kissing her escort.

_Life is all one big scam, my friend, but love is the greatest of them all. _Percy thought to himself, his fingers tracing circles on the varnished wood, the bitterest of smiles lingering on his lips.

He started when Annabeth plunked into the chair besides him, completely oblivious to his presence. She forcefully took her escort's head in her hands and hungrily attacked his lips, little sounds of pleasure escaping her lips as she did.

Something curious rose up inside Percy's chest as he watched the tragedy unfold with morbid fascination.

Annabeth didn't even have the decency to stop when she was _right_ in front of him. He wondered if this was all some sadistic plot designed to unhinge him because it was working with ruthless efficacy.

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them. "What the _hell_ is wrong with you Annabeth?" He roared, but she continued her activity like she hadn't even heard him.

An indescribably dark emotion brewed in the depths of Percy's heart, and with great difficulty, he repressed it.

"What in the world happened to you? What happened to the girl that I fell in love with? How could you do this to me?" He shouted, and by now Annabeth was gasping, trying to recover her breath as she held onto the shirt collar of the man in front of her.

"Do you have any idea just how hurt I am? Did you ever pause for one second to think of anyone but yourself, you selfish brat?" He seethed, hoping that his harsh words would cut through her thick, impenetrable skull.

Annabeth then captured the mouth of her date with a feverish hunger and Percy finally snapped.

"Are you even listening to me?" He demanded incredulously.

When he didn't receive a response, he made forward to wrench her away from the man in front of her so that she would be forced to look into his eyes and glimpse the pain and suffering that she had caused. Maybe then that would stir something in that dead heart of hers.

However, when Percy's hand passed through Annabeth's shoulder like it was made out of gas, Percy gasped. Again and again he swiped at her only to see his hand pass through her solid form.

Thoroughly perplexed, he pressed a hand to his forehead and pondered, his mind racing.

Then he remembered.

He remembered everything...

_In a fit of rage, Percy stormed out of the apartment not waiting for Annabeth to explain herself, and she never came. Fury coursed through his veins when he thought of the possibility of her just resuming her activity, dismissing his presence as a mere interruption. He allowed himself a second of smug satisfaction when he remembered that he had split the man's skull open. _

_He drove away, driving in absolutely no particular direction, just wanting to get away from the apartment, wanting to get away from her, wanting to get away from what he saw. He would never be able to erase what he had seen. Nothing could do that, no matter how much he wished it to be true. _

_When he passed a bar that he had passed a thousand times on his way to work without a second glance, he abruptly pulled into the parking lot and drank. _

_Suddenly, he forgot what happened that night. _

_The influence of alcohol dulled the pain and made him forget just what had occurred, but he knew that once he became sober, everything would just rush back to him. _

_So that night, he wandered back to his apartment in a drunken stupor and locked himself in the bedroom. Annabeth was nowhere to be found and any evidence of her misconduct was wiped without a trace. Percy stood on top of the chair he had used in the kitchen and secured the rope around his neck after it hung solidly from the ceiling fan. _

_With a kick of his foot, the chair toppled and the holocaust was complete. _

_Authorities the next day would find Percy suspended from the ceiling fan, a mocking smile on his face._

Suddenly, all the pieces fit together; the magic shot glasses, the grief on Grover and Pollux's faces, Annabeth's inability to hear a word he said.

When Percy looked at his attire, he noticed that it was the same as the clothes he had worn the day he died. His trembling hands probed his throat and he was mortified when he felt his crushed windpipe. It was no wonder the alcohol had burned his throat so much.

Percy realized with a sense of morbid fascination that he was a ghost, that he was dead, and that he was still here. The realization was puzzling yet liberating and then Percy wondered about his condition.

Maybe this was how things always were. He was metaphorically dead before and all the signs were there, but now that he was a ghost, they manifested themselves with sharper clarity. His fiance had never been faithful to him, he now realized; he was merely too blind to see it. He was too "dead" to recognize the looks of loathing that Grover and his other friends would shoot Annabeth at their get togethers. He was already too "dead" to feel and too "dead" to live.

As he sat there and the full implications of his false mortality flashed before finally settled in and made itself understood, Percy realized something, something he had known all along...

___Life is all one big scam, but love is the greatest of them all._


	2. Nocturne of Guilt

**Dedicated to fanficrulz1: I hope that this clears things up. All readers ****_must_**** listen to Chopin's "Nocturne in B-flat Minor" while reading.**

**Nocturne of Guilt**

The limp body twirled, round and round, and Annabeth watched with a sense of morbid fascination. In her mind, the nursery rhyme, "The Wheels on the Bus," began to play eerily and the children's voices chorused to create a discordant symphony that drowned out all other sounds.

Her fiance's body was rotating on the ceiling fan, and she was to blame. The fault was hers alone, and she would live with that fact till the day she died. It would eat at every aspect of her psyche and slowly whittle it away until there was nothing left; nothing but an empty husk unable to feel, unable to love, unable to think, ever waiting, begging for a death that she didn't deserve.

That was her fiance. That was the man that she loved that was dangling off the ceiling. That was the man that she had known from the tender age of twelve when they were both coming into adolescence.

She had been there with him through everything. Annabeth had practically watched Percy grow up before her very eyes, starting from the short, scrawny, naive twelve year old that she towered over and teased, to an irresistibly attractive boy at the prime of his adolescence, when his eyes never ceased to twinkle and the movement of his muscles fascinated her.

She had been there when he learned how to drive, she had been there for his first kiss and he had been there for hers, after all, it was a kiss that they had shared. His acceptance into college, the marriage between his mother and step-father, the birth of his new baby sister - she had been there through all of that.

Annabeth had stood by his side when he had told someone that he loved her; someone who was not an immediate family member. That someone was her, and she had responded without so much as thinking about it. It was reflexive to her; almost like breathing.

They would have shared that sacred moment when they finally gave their virginities to one another. And therein lie the problem.

Percy was adamant that they wait until they were married, claiming that he wanted everything to be absolutely perfect considering the momentous nature of such an affair. For a while, she had relented though she had secretly harbored a desire to do _it_ a year or so after they had started dating.

She waited and waited. Weeks turned into months, and months bled into years.

Deep inside the darkest recesses of her mind, doubt brewed, at first silently whispering small insecurities into the back of her mind, but later, speaking things far worse. She questioned everything about the man she vowed never to question. For the longest time, she thought nothing of these doubts, but then they began to grow in magnitude, staging incessant insurrections at her darkest hours.

It began with her questioning her own desirability. The answer was obvious in her eyes: Percy did not find her attractive. However, he would always answer the unasked question that plagued her mind and remind her that she was beautiful and gorgeous and the only woman he had eyes for, and when Annabeth saw the look in his eyes and heard the honesty in his tone, she would relax.

This process didn't end, with old doubts rising once again, only to be joined with new ones. Soon, she wondered if Percy was even heterosexual. What if Percy was having an affair? What if Percy just flat out didn't like sex for whatever reason? What if he just felt too nervous about it to try and was worried about messing up in bed?

_That was it. That had to be it. He's just nervous, right? _She would think, and temporarily her fears would abate.

Then one day, one simple idea shook her entire world down to its very foundations.

_What if Percy doesn't even love me?_

That thought kept Annabeth awake at night while her lover slept blissfully. She would toss and turn and hope with all her being that he felt something for her. Then she would remind herself that the way he looked at her, the way he spoke to her, the way he treated her, and the way he held her were also examples of his love for her, but the doubts never grew silent, and instead, with her every defense, seemed to gain strength.

Soon, all that Percy did began to sow more seeds of doubt in her mind. Annabeth was never the creepy, clingy, obsessive girlfriend, but he was starting to worry her. Just why did he stay late at work all those days? Why was he flying around the world for "business trips" all of the time? What was Percy even doing at work?

Then, everything mounted and she became so blinded with insecurity, she could no longer see the look in Percy's eyes or hear the tone of his voice or see the way he treated her or feel the way he held her. His love, in her eyes, was permanently tainted.

One day, her world just fell apart and she became so desperate, so desperate for intimacy, she couldn't resist the opportunity once it arrived. Percy was off in Geneva for a "Marine Biology Convention", which in Annabeth's mind translated to "Frolicking in Europe's Brothels", and she had just received a new client at the architecture firm: a handsome, powerful young man.

He was charming and Annabeth soon found herself attracted to him, not in the way that she ever was with Percy, but attracted in the sense that he appealed to her. Aesthetically, he was perfect, for Annabeth had an established criteria for her affair:

1. Target must not have dark hair  
2. Target must not have green eyes  
3. Target must never be seen again

Luke Castellan fit the bill perfectly. He was a blond with blue eyes and since he was only a client, a one night stand would never turn awkward since they wouldn't meet again. There was also no chance that he would ever run into Percy. He was perfect.

So one night, two days before Percy was supposed to arrive, Annabeth got him to come to her apartment alone to enjoy some wine or something of the sort. He was charming, but not at all as attractive or as alluring as Percy. She had to fight with every fiber in her body not to compare the two of them because if she did, she would realize the gravity of the situation and what a horrible mistake she was going to make, and she would most definitely have stopped.

Somehow, in the midst of their conversation about palisades for the new building, they both began to lean towards each, heavily under the influence of alcohol. Then his lips were on hers and they were kissing fiercely, and the feeling was so different, so much more animalistic and needy than kisses with Percy had ever been. One thing led to another and suddenly Annabeth was naked, hovering over his form, and in that moment, her conscience made on last stand: her virginity was Percy's and his alone, but here she was, about to give it to a total stranger.

With the combined influence of doubt and alcohol, she managed to stow away that warning in the back of her mind, and then they were doing it and it felt so impossibly good. Now she understood what all the fuss was about, and she relished and savored every single second. However, in the back of her mind, she knew that something was wrong, something was missing, something wasn't making this feel nearly as good as it should. Try as she might, she couldn't remove that nagging feeling and so she threw herself into the activity, becoming more passionate and carnal in her need as she moved back and forth with increasing speed and fervor.

That was when the door flew open and just as she moaned Luke's name, she saw Percy standing in the doorframe, pale as a ghost. Instinctively, she flew off of Luke's body and covered herself, screaming Percy's name in fear. He wasn't supposed to have been back for another two days, so what was he doing here?

To protect the vestiges of her sanity, she refused to meet his eyes, knowing that once she saw the betrayal in them, there would be no hope for her. Things moved quickly and suddenly Luke was on the ground, his skull split open, and Annabeth could feel the rage emanating off of Percy's body like tidal waves on a stormy sea.

She had seen Percy angry before and being on the receiving end always scared her, not because she was afraid that he would hurt her, but because of the sheer intensity of emotion. However, that intensity was absolutely nothing compared to what she was experiencing now. This was a tsunami of anger, pain, and betrayal, and she was definitely not going to make it.

Annabeth jolted when a tiny, black velvet box landed on her lap and then Percy stormed out the door, not even looking back, and he spoke two simple words that completed Annabeth's holocaust.

"We're through."

In the shock that ensued following the chaos that had occurred on seconds ago, Annabeth sat dumbly on their bed - no, _her_ bed now, and stared hopelessly at the black velvet box. Her world was over and amidst the rage of the storm, with trembling fingers she opened the box and cried for hours when she saw the most perfect diamond ring she had ever seen in her life.

She knew that it must have cost him an extravagant sum of money, definitely many a month's paycheck to afford this, maybe even year's worth. However, all that effort, all that anticipation was for naught, destroyed in seconds, and it was all her fault.

If she had just been able to wait! Just until that night!

The irony was sickening. She would have gotten what she so desperately sought if she could have just waited one more night instead of acting like a selfish little whore. That's what she was now - an adulteress.

And so she stood, watching him twirl around the ceiling fan, his neck clearly snapped in two. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had hoped that he would have returned home, undoubtedly furious, maybe even drunk, and then she could have begged for forgiveness. She would have gotten on her knees if she had to, anything to get him back. If he hadn't come back, then she would have searched all four corners of the Earth for him, never resting until she died or won him back. It was naive, but there was no future without Percy in her eyes.

It suddenly occurred to her that she had destroyed a decade of love, of trust, of happiness in a few minutes. She couldn't even begin to describe what she felt when she realized that.

Her hands and mouth moved without her realizing and she had called the cops to report a suicide and then left promptly afterwards.

In the days that followed, Annabeth became a prostitute in all but name, giving her body away just to escape into that high, if only for a few seconds. That was the type of love that she deserved, and she accepted it willingly to atone for her sins.

In her eyes, her body no longer held value. It was a desecrated and broken vessel, and so it was better to just cast it out and let the vermin make what use of it that they could.

Intimacy, passion, love, feeling - none of these words held any meaning to her any longer.

That was, until the day the lawyer showed up at her house to return the items of Percy's will. He had left her everything, all of his assets and possessions, but what interested Annabeth the most was his journal. She never even knew that Percy kept one. With trembling fingers, she opened the fraying and well-worn book and skimmed over major dates.

_August 18, 2012_

_Oh my gosh, I finally asked Annabeth out today and she said yes! She was so happy that she pushed me into the school pool and we kissed underwater! Not going to lie, that was pretty epic. _

_Who would've thought a Seaweed Brain like me would have a girlfriend like that? I must be the luckiest guy in the world!_

_- Percy Jackson_

Annabeth's heart grew heavier when she read his messy penmanship and the words that he wrote. He wrote so simply, yet so meaningfully. The best and worst thing about this all was that Annabeth knew that everything she read was going to be the truth, and nothing but the truth.

_January 24, 2017_

_Annabeth and I finally got a new place today and moved in. It's a really nice apartment and it's a great change from being in the cramped dorms all day. At least now we get to kiss without worrying about a roommate walking in. _

_Umm, not sure how to write this, and Annabeth will definitely kill me if she reads this, but she's been... "pressuring" me again. _

_There's a part of me that really wants to say yes, if for no other reason than to make her happy. Of course, I would be happy as well and I think about it a lot, but I just... I just don't want there to be any regrets, you know? I mean, if we actually do it, then I want to make sure that she doesn't wake up the next morning and hate what we did. _

_Also, I know that I am going to be __just_ awful in bed. Knowing Annabeth, she's probably going to be amazing on her first try and she'll have high expectations of me, and I just don't know if I'll meet them. I'm scared that I'll mess up and just screw things up between us. I just... I just want everything to be perfect because she's perfect.

_- Percy Jackson_

The feeling inside her heart took a more painful turn and she realized now how uncomfortable it must have been in his shoes when she pushed him all of those times. He was scared of displeasing her, of making her regret things in the morning.

_Why did he have to be so selfless?_ Annabeth cried to herself, wrinkling the paper in her hands.

_December 23, 2022_

_Today's the day that I finally propose to Annabeth. God, I am so nervous right now, it's disgusting. There's some part of me that wonders if she'll even say yes. Lately, she's been growing more distant and won't tell me what's wrong. I think that it's because I'm displeasing her. What if I am not enough? After all, I am just a Seaweed Brain... _

_God, I really really hope that she says yes. Maybe I can show her that I can be enough, even if I am not now. I'll be everything that she needs me to be; I'll be the man that she deserves. _

_I hope she likes the ring. _

_- Percy Jackson_

Authorities were called a short while later about another suicide. They found the broken form of the young blond woman, sprawled against the pavement. Members of the crowd claimed that she had jumped not that long ago. The police had to fight off strangers that were trying to pry something from the young woman's finger: a diamond engagement ring.

Maybe, Annabeth had liked the ring after all.


End file.
